Follow a shadow, it still flies you.
Seem to fly it, it will pursue:
So court a mistress, she denies you;
Let her alone, she will court you.
Say are not women truly then,
Styled but the shadows of us men? [ Ben Jonson ]
Press onward through each varying hour;
Let no weak fears thy course delay;
Immortal being! feel thy power,
Pursue thy bright and endless way. [ Andrews Norton ]
Look around the habitable world, how few
Know their own good, or knowing it, pursue. [ Dryden ]
Divine Philosophy, by whose pure light
We first distinguish, then pursue the right;
Thy power the breast from every error frees,
And weeds out all its vices by degrees. [ Juv ]
Brook! whose society the poet seeks,
Intent his wasted spirits to renew;
And whom the curious painter doth pursue
Through rocky passes, among flowery creeks.
And tracks thee dancing down thy waterbreaks. [ Wordsworth ]
May widows wed as often as they can,
And ever for the better change their man;
And some devouring plague pursue their lives,
Who will not well be governed by their wives. [ Dryden ]
What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue! [ Burke ]
Happiness is a bird that we pursue our life long, without catching it.
I see the right, and I approve it too; condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue. [ Ovid ]
Criticism must never be sharpened into anatomy. The life of the imagination, as of the body, disappears when we pursue it. [ Willmott ]
We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity. When America is united, America is totally unstoppable. [ President Donald J. Trump, Presidential Inaugeration Speech, Jan 20, 2017 ]
What I object to Scotch philosophers in general is that they reason upon man as they would upon a divinity; they pursue truth without caring if it be useful truth. [ Sydney Smith ]
When men neglect God, they neglect their own safety; they procure their own ruin; they fly from their own happiness; they pursue their own misery, and make haste to be undone. [ J. Mair ]
Men pursue riches under the idea that their possession will set them at pace, and above the world. But the law of association often makes those who begin by loving gold as a servant finish by becoming themselves its slaves; and independence without wealth is at least as common as wealth without independence. [ Colton ]
Those who start for human glory, like the mettled hounds of Actaeon, must pursue the game not only where there is a path, but where there is none. They must be able to simulate and dissimulate; to leap and to creep; to conquer the earth like Caesar, or to fall down and kiss it like Brutus; to throw their sword like Brennus into the trembling scale, or, like Nelson, to snatch the laurels from the doubtful hand of Victory, while she is hesitating where to bestow them. [ Colton ]
Mother! How many delightful associations cluster around that word! The innocent smiles of infancy, the gambols of boyhood, and the happiest hours of riper years! When my heart aches and my limbs are weary travelling the thorny path of life, I sit down on some mossy stone, and closing my eyes on real scenes, send my spirit back to the days of early life; I feel afresh my infant joys and sorrows, till my spirit recovers its tone, and is willing to pursue its journey. But in all these reminiscences my mother rises; if I seat myself upon my cushion, it is at her side; if I sing, it is to her ear; if I walk the walls or the meadows, my little hand is in my mother's, and my little feet keep company with hers; when my heart bounds with its best joy, it is because at the performance of some task, or the recitation of some verses, I receive a present from her hand. There is no velvet so soft as a mother's lap, no rose so lovely as her smile, no path so flowery as that imprinted with her footsteps. [ Bishop Thomson ]